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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0610 Tuesday, 15 December 2009
[1] From: David Evett <
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Date: Monday, 14 Dec 2009 21:20:28 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 20.0603 Four Riddles in Hamlet
[2] From: Sid Lubow <
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Date: Monday, 14 Dec 2009 21:43:06 EST
Subj: Four Riddles in Hamlet
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: David Evett <
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Date: Monday, 14 Dec 2009 21:20:28 -0500
Subject: 20.0603 Four Riddles in Hamlet
Comment: Re: SHK 20.0603 Four Riddles in Hamlet
HAM: The body is with the King, but the King is not with the body.
I will ever so lightly invoke the doctrine of the King's Two Bodies.
Those of you not familiar with it should look at Ernst Kantorowicz'
book of the same title, 1957/97.
Corporately,
Dave Evett
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Sid Lubow <
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Date: Monday, 14 Dec 2009 21:43:06 EST
Subject: Four Riddles in Hamlet
This is hardly an enigma if one grasps what motivates Hamlet's
'madness'. His father has appeared on stage to tell him there has been a
foul crime that "would harrow up your soul, freeze thy young blood...
and each particular hair to stand on end, / Like quills on the fearful
porpentine, O list! /If thou didst ever thy dear father love-"
After having the players play the "murther" of his father before his
uncle the king's conscience has betrayed him. He confesses his crime in
a soliloquy. Polonius has volunteered to ferret out what Hamlet knows of
a conspiracy to kill the father and become the ruler of the kingdom. He
hides behind the arras of the Queens bedroom, where in reaction to the
Queen's outcry, he betrays his presence, whereupon Hamlet slays
Polonius. He then removes the body. Upon learning this, the king sends
two other "soaks" to find out where Hamlet has dragged the body. The
following takes place:
[Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN]
ROSENCRANTZ What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
HAMLET Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin.
ROSENCRANTZ Tell us where 'tis, that we may take it thence
And bear it to the chapel.
HAMLET Do not believe it.
ROSENCRANTZ Believe what?
HAMLET That I can keep your counsel and not mine own.
Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! what
replication should be made by the son of a king?
ROSENCRANTZ Take you me for a sponge, my lord?
HAMLET Ay, sir, that soaks up the king's countenance, his
rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the
king best service in the end: he keeps them, like
an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to
be last swallowed: when he needs what you have
gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you
shall be dry again.
ROSENCRANTZ I understand you not, my lord.
HAMLET I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a
foolish ear.
ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go
with us to the king.
HAMLET The body is with the king, but the king is not with
the body. The king is a thing --
GUILDENSTERN A thing, my lord!
HAMLET Of nothing: bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after.
[Exeunt]
Hamlet can hardly tolerate these "sponges" who soak up intelligence for
the conspirators, as Polonius was doing in the Queen's bedroom, but in a
grand political discourse to mere agents who perform such functional
spying on a prince, Hamlet tells them that as in a kingdom, or a
parliament, (or to use a more modern term, a corporation, a person) a
body politic, a state, a government, "the king is a thing... of nothing:
bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after." (A nobody) But he is hunting
the foxy uncle and will not stop until "after" he avenges his father.
As the "body of our kingdom" has been rescued from the "rank diseases"
that infect many Shakespearean political dramas.
KING HENRY IV Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
How foul it is; what rank diseases grow
And with what danger, near the heart of it.
Or the disloyal mother, the "beast" that so enraged the 'thought sick" Bard.
HAMLET ... Let me not think on't -- Frailty, thy name is woman! --
A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
Like Niobe, all tears: -- why she, even she --
O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
Would have mourn'd longer -- married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules: within a month:
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
It is not nor it cannot come to good:
But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.
Or the marriage contract, the "body of contraction" she dishonored:
HAMLET Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow:
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
Sid Lubow
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